Another circumstance he could not explain was the curious fact that the English as well as the Indian infantry regiments halted before the jungle instead of pushing forward to the river. Not even riflemen were sent into it, although the bush was by no means too thick for a chain of riflemen to take cover. The prickly bushes on the river’s bank were sparse enough, and the high grass reaching up to the mens’ shoulders would have made a splendid hiding-place.
By-and-by the English army had executed the movement to the left, and now stood facing the Russian front. One new regiment after the other was drawn from the second division and placed on the left wing, which was believed to be most threatened. The English guns thundered without interruption, but their position might have been better; many fired without being able to see the enemy at all through the thick jungle, and threw away their ammunition prematurely.
The sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky. A slight north-westerly breeze coming from the far distant hills blew the smoke of the powder in clouds back on the English army.
The enemy being thus completely shrouded from view, the infantry stood motionless. A sullen expectation brooded over the colossal forces, who realised danger, but were yet condemned to a torturing inactivity. Suddenly the wild roar of thousands of voices rose from the river, and hosts of cavalry, which before could have been held back by English infantry, broke through the jungles like immense swarms of locusts. Thousands of wild Afghans and warriors from Bukhara, Samarcand, Khiva, and Semiryechensk, combined in the Turkestan divisions, had crossed the river and, wildly crying “Allah! Allah!” hurled themselves upon the English battalions and batteries. Splendidly trained at firing from the saddle, they were terrible foes indeed.
Although the English returned the unexpected attack with crackling volleys, and did not recoil a hair’s breadth from their positions, the Russian lines suffered but small losses in consequence of their open order. One new swarm after the other broke through the jungle, and rushed like an army of devils upon the batteries. A few of these were silenced; the men who served them were killed before they were able to turn their guns against their assailants, so wildly rapid had been this surprise rush of the bold horsemen.
The English cavalry, advancing to a magnificent attack, arrived too late; the weight of the shock was lost, the enemy having already dispersed in all directions. These men understood how to manage their small, rapid horses in a marvellous manner. They seemed like centaurs, and the rapidity with which they broke up their squadron, in order immediately after to close up again at another place in dense masses, rendered a counter attack on the part of the serried ranks of their adversaries almost impossible.
At one time, Heideck, with that part of the staff to which he had attached himself, had been drawn into the shock of battle. He had been obliged to shoot an Afghan, who attacked him, down from his horse, and he would probably, a moment afterwards, have been laid low by the sabre of another, had not the faithful Morar Gopal, who displayed extraordinary courage, just at the right moment made the horseman harmless by a well-directed blow of his sword. The cavalry engagement was still undecided, when lo! in the grass before the jungle were seen a number of glittering sparks. The sharp crack of shots was heard, and their destructive effect showed how admirably the Russian riflemen, who were gradually advancing against the British army, knew how to handle their rifles. The British infantry kept on discharging volleys indefatigably, but no practical result of all this waste of ammunition was apparent. Their targets were too small and too scattered, and the mechanical volleys fired at the word of command had but little effect. Besides this, the Russians had admirable cover, with the variegated jungle as a background, whilst the English stood out sharply against the horizon, and presented an excellent mark. According to their plan, the Russians first of all directed their fire against the men who were serving the batteries. Their well-directed shooting decimated the English artillery to a terrible degree. Scarcely two minutes had elapsed before the order was given to fall back with the guns. As far as was possible, the English harnessed up, and galloped off to take up their position between the infantry battalions, and from there again to open fire. The advance of the English artillery, which had taken place contrary to orders, and which was a result of their over-hasty forward movement, thus showed itself to have been a most disastrous step.
An even stronger and more damaging effect than that of the attack itself, was produced by the ceaseless cries of “Allah! Allah!” which proceeded from the Afghans and the Turkestan cavalry, and penetrated to the Mohammedans who stood in the British lines. Heideck saw quite clearly that, here and there, the Indian soldiers ceased firing as if in obedience to a word of command, and could distinguish how English officers in their excitement struck the men with the flat of the sword and threatened them with the revolver. Obviously, the leaders had lost all influence over the foreign elements under their command. Close to the Commander-in-Chief an English captain was bayoneted by an Indian soldier, and there could be no doubt that similar cases of open mutiny took place amongst the other Indian troops.
The men, who had only followed the orders of the foreign tyrants with the utmost reluctance, evidently believed the moment had come for shaking off the hated yoke, and at the same time the old enmity between the Mohammedans and Hindus, the rivalry between the two religions, which often in times of peace occasioned bloody feuds, burst into open flames. In the midst of the British army duels to the death were fought out between the irreconcilable adversaries. Thus it was unavoidable that the entire discipline became shaken and destroyed.
The battlefield was an awful spectacle. Before the front innumerable wounded, crying out for help, where no help was possible, were writhing in agony, for the retreat of the English artillery had had to be executed without thought of those left behind; wounded horses, wildly kicking to free themselves from their harness, increased the horror of the terrible scene, whilst stray divisions of English cavalry riding amongst them were fired upon by their own infantry out of fear of the advance of the Russian riflemen. Although in war all battlefields present a spectacle of the utmost horror, so that only the excitement of the moment enables human beings to endure it, yet the picture this battle of the advanced lines presented surpassed all imagination. The want of discipline amongst the English lines increased more and more, and the English officers had to fix their whole attention upon their own troops, instead of upon the movements of the enemy. The necessity for this was soon evident.